TULSA, Okla. — Football fans across the country watched in shock as Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle against the Bengals in Cincinnati on Monday night.
Hamlin stood up, took a couple of steps, then collapsed on the field. The risk of injury in athletics is a given, but when a seemingly perfectly healthy professional football player collapses from a sudden cardiac arrest, the sport and the health of the athletes comes into question.
Interventional Cardiologist, Dr. Tucker Harrison with the Saint Francis Heart and Vascular Institute said generally the fear of football injuries is concussions but events like Hamlin’s, while rare, still happen. Harrison said after watching the clip a few times, he believes the hit was hard enough to cause sudden cardiac arrest.
“The strike to the chest can actually cause an electrical impulse to disrupt the normal function of the heart. And then what happens is it kind of sets off this cascade of events where the heart’s no longer able to adequately pump blood out to the body and then as you see, the patient goes into cardiac arrest, or in this situation, the football player went into cardiac arrest,” Harrison said.
Harrison said assuming Hamlin was completely healthy with no underlying issues ahead of the game, his collapse was really a freak accident.
“It’s a timing phenomena, so the hit has to occur at exactly the right time, during the cycle of cardiac function,” Harrison said.
He said cardiac arrest from a hit to the chest is rare but it can happen. He said this phenomena is actually more prevalent in baseball players who are hit by pitches to the chest. He said this isn’t something people should necessarily be worried about but the best to avoid these types of injuries in sports, is to simply not play.
Harrison said in events like this, treating the patient as quickly as possible is crucial to keeping them alive and allowing for as little damage to be done as possible. He said this event is a great reminder to learn CPR and learn how to operate an AED or defibrillator.
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